Geoff Allendorf’s Promise

RACING in Macau stopped six months ago but former trainer Geoff Allendorf still goes to the stables every morning, just like he has since childhood, taking care of his horses. 

Allendorf’s three-decade-plus career in Asian racing ended when the Macau Jockey Club ran its last races on March 30 this year but Allendorf remains here on a promise to owners and through his own love of horses. 

“The owners all went into a panic because they love their horses,” Allendorf told the Idol Horse Podcast. “So I said to them, I’ll guarantee I will stay in the Macau Jockey Club (MJC) until your horse leaves Macau.”

We meet Allendorf away from Taipa Racecourse, in a park on top of Taipa Grande, the 150m tall hill that overlooks the Cotai Strip. Behind us, to the west is the racecourse, which hosted its final meeting on March 30, but all around are signs of progress in Macau. To the south, the glittering towers of the casinos that have risen from mostly reclaimed land over the last 20 years – the Galaxy, Venetian and City Of Dreams. To the north, the even newer bridge to Hong Kong. Neither were there when Macau Jockey Club ran its first race in 1989 or when the casino magnate and billionaire Stanley Ho bought the club in 1991.

Right in front of us to the east is Macau International Airport, where Allendorf will depart, he hopes, sometime in the next two months. Only after he has completed his mission, kept his promise to owners and rehomed each of his horses.

“I thought they’d be gone in four months,” he said of the horses, which will be sent to a variety of locations, including Chinese riding schools and to continue racing on the Malaysian circuit. Allendorf says there are still 90 horses stabled at Taipa, half of the horse population when racing ceased on April 30. “It’s quite unprofessional,” he said of the issues in rehoming the horses, which have been exacerbated by a delay in the MJC gaining protocols to send horses to Australia and New Zealand. “That should have been the first port of call.” 

Horse racing is Allendorf’s life. He has been riding since he was six, and riding trackwork at 12 for his father in Cairns. He moved to Sydney as a teenaged apprentice and then found his way to Macau via a productive stint in Hong Kong. After a highly successful riding career in Macau and three seasons as an assistant trainer, he trained for 19 seasons here. 

Allendorf is entitled to be angry and disappointed in the situation he has been left in, but maintains a measured tone. Still, he doesn’t mince words when it comes to how Macau racing fell into dysfunction and disrepair, and ultimately extinction. 

“Set up to fail,” is how Allendorf feels the participants were left, buying horses under the impression the sport would continue. “Towards the end … especially from the time Stanley Ho got sick to the time he died, management has just been shocking.” 

As Ho battled with his health for the decade up until his death in 2020, a succession of leaders at the MJC either had their hands tied, when they were capable, or non-racing people were put into positions of power. 

“You can’t just have people given jobs because they’re a friend of Stanley Ho’s,” Allendorf said. “Sure, you can have a job, but I can’t have a high-up job that’s making all the decisions. You need an expert to do that.” 

In the late 1990s Macau was a genuine little brother to Hong Kong but also connected to the broader racing culture. There were up to 1200 horses trained on course and the betting was booming. Former Sydney and Hong Kong steward John Shreck was in charge and some of the best jockeys in the world would come on short stints in the former Portuguese colony. Allendorf, who won Group 1s in Australia and Hong Kong, was a good enough rider to win three jockeys championships in Macau against serious competition.

“Well, our racing was flying in the 90s,” he said. “We had 30 jockeys at times. Patrick Payne was our lead jockey. We had the jockeys of the calibre of Stephen Arnold riding here. We had the likes of Tony Ives, Glen Boss and Mick Ditman coming in on visits. 

“When you’re running a good show, you’ll get that sort of class of people. People were betting, we had a lot of horses and we had a lot of good racing. When Hong Kong didn’t have a race on, we were racing three times a week. And we were running 20 races each weekend. You supply a good product, people will come, and that’s when we were doing when we were at our best. But we also had a guy, John Shrek, who had a free hand to make the right decisions.” 

“At the end, we were lucky to have 12 to 14 jockeys so we could just have the field. If somebody got sick we were in trouble.”

Sadly, the abrupt nature of Macau’s closure means Allendorf didn’t get to choose when he would retire. “I probably won’t train again,” he said on the Idol Horse Podcast. “I’m getting up in the age group. I’m 67. I definitely would have spent another five to eight years training here if we would have continued. 

“The club had just signed a 24 year lease so I definitely thought I had plenty of time up my sleeve and I would have loved to train here till the end.” 

Allendorf will return to Australia after he has fulfilled his promise of rehoming his horses for his long term owners and is considering a job handling horses on overseas flights. 

“I need to be involved in horses, especially race horses, but I need to be involved somewhere,” he said. “First of all, besides loving it, it’s the only thing I can do. The Venetian or many of these casinos haven’t offered me a CEO job, but I’ve been with racehorses all my life. Even when I was growing up as a child, I was with racehorses and that’s all I’ve ever done. And that’s why I love it so much. I’ll always be involved in horses for sure.”